Willowbrook earns the bronze

Willowbrook Rehabilitation and Care Center, in Yadkinville, North Carolina recently earned the prestigious 2020 AHCA Bronze Award for Quality. This award is the first of three progressive levels of awards that demonstrate a care center’s commitment to quality and performance excellence. 

We interviewed the executive director of Willowbrook, Brandi Semones, to learn more about the work that went into earning the Bronze Award. Semones said that her team, including the medical director, worked together on a plan. They examined Willowbrook’s policies and procedures, mission, demographics, customer group, and core competencies.

Willowbrook’s QAPI efforts played a large role in informing the application process. QAPI stands for Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement, and is a systematic approach of identifying opportunities for improvement in the care center, addressing gaps in systems or processes, developing and implementing an improvement plan, and continuously monitoring the effectiveness of the interventions. The QAPI committee meets very regularly, and the robust program was an important part of earning the Bronze Award.

While the process of pulling the information into the application largely fell on the executive director, Semones said the key to success was the input of her team and the support from her regional staff. “I am so proud of my staff. I owe it to them,” she said.

The staff at Willowbrook will be celebrating their Bronze Award in the near future. The care center is already setting its sights on applying for the AHCA Silver Award for Quality next year.